What is Dust anyway?

A fox? A cat? A wolf? Just... Dust?

So... one of the weirder gaming questions to nag at me, is in regards to Dust: An Elysian Tail, and its been on my mind again. Its a weird irrelevant question, but one still opened by the art style and lack of dialogue towards answering it: What is Dust? As in, in a world full of rodent critters, lizard monster things, and other weird elemental and more totally monstrous fantasy beings, what exactly is Dust? Its not just my own question, its one I've found three forum topics on. Many people claim he's a wolf, fox, or cat, with some even pointing to rodents but... no, just no. He ain't a rabbit, plain and simple. I'll also dismiss wolf, because while some may think that's just as valid as a fox considering similar structure, I'm just going to suggest a wolf would be bigger in structure. I know it doesn't totally match up since this is a world where mice and rabbits are of the same size, but still I just tend to expect a wolf to show a trace more of muscle, bulk, or something of that nature. Besides Dust just uses a lot of finesse, magic, and has that sense of grace regarding his characteristics and fighting, which I think fits a fox or cat more than a wolf. Up until today where I'm checking them, I hung onto a little opinion I'll bring up. However before I go forward...

SPOILERS ARE WITHIN REGARDING THE GAME IN QUESTION!

So before I do this, I'll give you links to all 3 of the best forum topics regarding this little question, so you can figure out where you stand with the community. Got it? Good. I'll also assume you've played the game, otherwise you might be a bit confused.

Okay so, originally I assumed that Ginger and her family were cats. They just sort of seem like cats. Now Cassius on the other hand, came off as more of a fox with his silhouette close-up. So when the plot revelation comes up regarding Dust being a magical combination of the two souls, I felt it was safe to assume the theory that he was a hybrid. With a small-ish snout, and a long bushy tail, I sat on that conclusion for a long while thinking he was a fox and cat hybrid. However two bigger realizations occurred to me to make me change my mind on that, and as much as I hate to land on the thing that sounds most obviously biased, I've got to recently change my opinion to that of a fox. That's because...

1) While Ginger still looks kinda like a cat, looking back at the cut-scnese kind of shows she has a bushy tail as well, and same with her brother. I only just now saw a glimpse at the brother's bushy tail as I was doing the check for this theory once again today.

2) The snout/face thing is almost worth throwing out the window. Not only is Dust's face length inconsistent (longer in the header image, than most of the gameplay), but the entire game is kinda like that. I mean look at any of the mousier characters, and seriously ask yourself if a mouse ever has a face that flat either. If you've ever seen one, you'll know the answer. Fact is, much like the wild characters where people can be casually purple, green, and teal, so to can the faces be flatter, rounder, or more human in this art style.

...case made.

I mean don't get me wrong, there's still a nagging suspicion that Ginger is a cat with just a bushy tail (heck maybe they even outright say it and I've just forgotten. I'm not the only one with this strong assumption), then there's also the fact that Reed seems more fox-like than Dust right alongside each other, but still... it now feels like Dust really could be a fox. Especially once doing this article, and seeing how inconsistent the whole snout argument is among pictures, cut-scenes, gameplay, etc. Its not a big factor, and yet he has the same pointy ears and bushy tail, and looks like a fox in quite a few moments where-as he never totally strikes a cat-like vibe 100% as far as I'm concerned. To quote the comment that really shook my matter on this:

"he is a fox.

And before you say 'his face isnt long enough', look at the rest of the character styles. They all have more human aspect-faces than animal aspect faces.

It's alot easier to tell when he takes off his hat 3/4 of the way through the game."

Even though I lack his assured-ness, I definitely agree with the guy. Its a strange but cool character art style, I mean we're talking about a teal Don Bluth meets anime animal character after-all. Its a fun mystery to have, and an even better game to play.

Controversy Corner: No man's game, Plus a price hike

Running through this one...

Okay so what may or may not become a new segment bit, here is controversy corner... a bit where I try to stuff my ramblings on of recent controversies into smaller bits. I want to get over the whole part about wasting my time with so many unnecessary blabbering, as there's too many awesome games out there to better spend time discussing or playing than to worry over what the internet is up in a fit over. However I still feel its healthy to keep a side of discussion open, so... lets try instead of giving you six paragraphs and two tagent bits in between, how about I limit this to 3 bits and try to gloss over the issue? Sounds good? Good, lets try this with some hot topics as of late, sadly both of which involve smack-talking some questionable moves from within the industry...

PlayStation Plus is going to plus in price

As of November 2014, it was proclaimed the climate of the PS4 has made the PS+ membership count skyrocket in a number that has been described as "quadruple". That's not a simple word with this stuff, especially when we had millions to work with BEFORE that number. How did this happen with the PS4? Two major things: 1) The PS4 sold to ridiculous levels, possibly being of the same high stakes as quadruple. So duh, there's going to be more members. 2) Online is now artificially walled off to a PS+ privilege, rather than by simply having a PSN count and an online game. Those are two major reasons to see the count go up, especially given how one of the biggest selling yearly franchises on consoles is an online-centric game (there's an entire fraction of consumers who just play COD and maybe one or two other games with buddies online). Yeah those people didn't come because suddenly they wanted an old port of meatboy, they're here to play the damn games they already paid for. Meanwhile its not like the console userbase has a way to say no to this and still get online, because Nintendo barely does online worthy stuff and isn't a serious 3rd party space, and Xbox was already doing this. The world of PC is there if you can afford it, but that isn't helping you bypass the hacker crap of Dark Souls, nor is it letting you have your fun with friends on Uncharted 4 or Halo 5. Sony really played their cards smartly, but meanly, and trapped people up into this.

So why am I discussing this when the header bit was talking price? Because its got everything to do with my commentary on it, and why I think its bullshit... but also inevitable under current conditions. Its another case of competition turning on us sourly, where instead of competing with better values, we're seeing them simply use each other to measure where they can box us in for higher profits. That doesn't make it morally okay though, nor am I going to sit by and pretend we'll be blindly happier this way, or that because its just $10 its magically not bad enough to cry about. As much as I can laugh at Mega64's satire of the outcry, it ain't exactly making anything better. At the end of the day, this is technology going two steps forward, and one backwards. Its where we should be thriving in an age of online entertainment and excitement, but meanwhile companies love looking to use it to shake people for more money. Yet people are trying to defend this somehow, calling the fuss off as a vocal minority (apparently its just like 10 guys complaining about paying higher unjustified bills), suggesting its the cost of all the value here (uh... like a Gone Home port and Tricky Towers?), and other such stuff. Sorry but, none of that logic even begins to make a bit of sense.

Uh... millions signed up for months of stuff like this!? No.

The bottom line is we shouldn't even have to pay for online gaming as a separate entity to begin with. We pay our internet bills, we pay for the games, and so we should be getting the games and our online. No server bullshit either, because devs are still running those server costs and cutting corners, not Sony's end. Sony runs the stuff that you can get even free, and despite the huge amount of people subbing, the service has gotten even worse.  Again, the number did not quadruple because over 7 million people prefer Zombie U, Rocket League, and indie ports over stuff like Uncharted, bioshock, batman, and gravity rush. They can't even be bothered to release freakin' Knack of all things, years after its bombed and under their own name so there's no big strings to pull. Its not even that hard to get to these games in this day either, microsoft had AC4 on their gold games list. That's why there's extra salt on the wound. Instead of improving, PS+ has gotten worse and in the face of so many complaints, we're told "Oh hey, its time to pay more". That's not to say they don't try and that the games are bad. You can still love this stuff. Dust is incredible, and IMO the best thing to come out of PS+ on PS4. Then there's Rocket league, Grow Home, and such. Still the fact that the best thing is a one-man indie game released back 4 years ago is telling of where their effort has gone. They don't have the incentive anymore to bring in numbers through value, nor are they even making up that excuse for the price hike. We're simply told in a sneaky update post on the blog, that its what the market conditions determine. I actually partially admire that for being such an honest way to confess exactly what they're doing, but it doesn't make it any better. They've got online console gamers boxed into a corner, and they're raising the rate up with nothing promising to show for it, because they just can do that. They can do it again to, because the market is cornered into it. Welp I'll probably jump out of the service... besides, I kind of want to actually own Dust anyway, something I can't ironically do with the "great values of PS+"

Seriously guys, go play Dust. Its fantastic

No Man's Game (because everyone's refunding it)

Hehe, check out this. Its made such a scene that valve has to put up a little warning on it...

Or maybe this link if you can't see it from the above. Its got a disclaimer on it pointing to how there's no special exception on the refund policy relating to No Man's Sky. That implies there's so many people trying to send it back regardless of the 2 hour bit, that they needed to warn people they aren't special snowflakes just because they bought a deceitful game. However that game has been absorbing the spotlight as if it was undergoing some kinda special photosynthesis of bad attention. Now that people are sick of the hype culture, and bullshit lies spread out by this game's creator, they've flocked in mass to return the overpriced survival space game, and its not just steam. If anything, steam is the little guy in this mess. Sony's had to bend their lack of refund policies, and keep having to clear up and redo info they put out there about refunding costumers. Really this just all boils down to: people are pissed after catching onto what NMS is really all about, and just like I said before, its exactly what I told you it would be... and completely not what the game's director told you it would be. Someone out there has given me a number of about 90% of a player drop-rate and the game is still new. For something that promises 20-50 hours in one of the biggest gaming spaces ever, that's sad.... and yet its sweet, sweet justice.

Look I like the game enough to keep my copy, and I also can't exactly cry to sony about my download since I bought it at bestbuy, but eh whatever. That being said, I'll defend and even commend the people's will to refund this product for being a lying over-hyped buggy goof of a release. Harsh, but deserved from the best we can tell, because we've been misled by a combination of factors, but the biggest offense is that among those factors are the people who benefit most from being a snake-oil salesmen. Its not a matter of "if" Sean lied, its that he did, and they still try to hide it even when caught. Yet here comes a cry of people hating the backlash, defending the devs and their own purchase, feeling threatened somehow by the consumer's ability to fight off cheats. Look I'm all for "buyer beware" and consumers having some responsibility, but part of that involves taking a foul product back for a refund. Listen very carefully here: If you go and buy a product, and it turns out the product you were told you were buying, was not what you got, its not your fault. Its not the consumers fault that someone put the wrong thing in the box, or someone totally screwed up the product they were supposed to be selling. It is only the consumer's fault if they knew that ahead of time and grabbed it anyway. Refunds basically exist for both that reason, and for total defects, so yeah its justified they get their refund for a game that was not what it was said to be. That's not up for debate either. You can debate how much of it was a lie, because our best source wasn't even initially correct and we don't entirely know things that were fairly lost in the dev cycle; Still we do know that there were in fact bold lies and hidden deceptions up to even so much as post-launch where they pretend the lack of online interaction was a fault on their servers.

On the other hand, I will agree to draw the line at refunding people who have been happily enjoying their game for 30-50 hours on end. Once you cross a certain limit like that, you've got your money's worth, and have played the product. However to everyone else in an uproar about it, first off: mind your own damn business and go play this game you think is too great for a refund. If the retailers think the refunds are bullshit, they can contest that themselves without your peanut gallery services. Secondly, what good are you doing by crying about them? What are you doing productively for you, them, the game, the media, or the art form? What do you hope to accomplish by degrading them, calling people dumb for not being a fortune teller about the lies, by suggesting they're somehow responsible for the quality of their purchase they did not have any way of creating, and/or just saying they complain too much? There's something sad levels of hypocrisy and irony in degrading someone as being a dumb irresponsible consumer while trying to silence the people who are out warning other consumers of the game's faults and their own bad experience with it. After-all, if you do wish to help the companies here rather than the people, consider this a better alternative to the higher likelihood of lawsuits breaking out after all the false claims and marketing on this game. It can and should still happen, but maybe its held off longer because some of the angrier consumers are getting their money back.

Our fussing isn't going totally unanswered, and that's a good thing!

That's all for now. Here's to hoping the next article is more positive again

Nioh: Not enough people are talking about it

Oh Nioh, how you caught me totally off-guard. Just saw it on the PSN store, dude who looked like Geralt off of Witcher with some japanese gibberish of "Nioh" and alpha on the screen. I thought eh, whatever, and tried it. Never expected it to be a Dark Souls game, except... well, even more japanese. Yet its incredible at that aspect. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the demo, because it only ever gave me two swords and as I was practicing, experimenting, summoning ghosts to fight, I died a lot. I also wore out the blades a lot, and once they broke that was it. It was a very stupid design in a Souls type game where a big point to the game was practicing and improving in a very difficult atmosphere of a game. People reassured me you get drops further on, but what was the point of that if I just wanted to practice or simply couldn't get to that magical loot-fantasy point!? Also what happens once I get my new weapon, I just break that and drag that to the next loot drop point? Its stupid. You wanna know what else is stupid? How damn fun the game still managed to be, because I dragged through and wound up pushing even further with simply broken blades and just didn't care enough to quit.

The game was just a lot of fun. It had its problems like the durability that hindered it from being as good as Souls, but it did such a good job of establishing most of that gameplay loop while bringing its own style to the table. It had fighting techniques that could change up combat, a system where blood stains from souls were essentially extra opponents because "why not?", and best of all it was just that great presentation. I love Dark Souls and all its amazing lore, art style, and atmosphere, but something was just greatly refreshing and instantly enticing about foreign mythology instead of mostly western stuff. Nioh was dripping in Japanese-stylization, even to the point where it kind of leaves me scratching my head at a lot of stuff. Still I can't deny that its great to have a wolf guarding my grave instead of just generic energy residue, or offering sake to play multiplayer instead of... magical soapstone? Yeah that's always kind of been a question on my mind, but whatever. Basically I'm into the idea that after fighting through three games of castles, zombies, and knights that I can enjoy some time with mystified samurai and wonder if I should be pretentiously sipping a cup of cheap sake that looks japanese but was really out of california. Still the game had some irksome bits about it that I kind of thought would hinder it just a bit. That durability, the incredibly stingy health restoration, and feeling like I was just missing some basic function on how to properly use its combat system.

Okami? Is that you?

Now the beta is out, and holy crap I still love this game. I think they fixed the supposed frame-rate problem for the 60fps mode (could be mistaken though), and rebalanced some really big stuff. I still remember when I read the article on changes. They didn't nerf or buff things like the weapon durability, the removed the system entirely. That's a bold step I haven't seen taken since Thief's reboot threw out the dumb XP system. That's an entire element of gameplay, part of survival, and part of the duration, possibly with other bits linked to it like an item that helps it out. Still I'm so proud and happy of the fact they just threw it out the window, and told players to just go and enjoy themselves a bit more. I'm all for gameplay depth, but its got to make sense, and feel good. The durability is gone, and despite that they funnily seem to have given far more item drops than before, have a new function in place to elevate a specific drop to the player's wishes, and I think even the Ki pulse move has been changed to make a bit more sense. This all dramatically smoothed out my experience, and I've gone much further. The health fixer still refuses to give you anything more than 1/3rd of your health and doesn't add up a lot until later, but even then there's way more item drops so that 3 you get at your start is practically your ONLY life force.

However don't be afraid if you're some try-hard looking to express your desire to eat rusty nails, because funnily enough the first outside feedback I saw was "Its much harder now!" ...yeah, somehow, game got harder. I... wont exactly say I agree, but it was a much upvoted comment, and at least someone added in a true statement that there seems to be denser enemy population. So fingers crossed the supposed champions of hardness don't whine for this current pace to change, because I love it. Its still obsessively japanese, its still really tough but yet practical and satisfying, its still using some neat new ideas I like, and its just really shaping up to look good. I'm honestly left just shocked that I hear so little about this game. I've seen some good destructoid articles on it, but little else. I think its set to follow in Demon Soul's footsteps honestly. Its probably going to release and find itself a nice cozy cult community, but will go largely ignored unless they do something spectacular for a sequel. I've got to kind of confess I may not even be there for it at launch, since too many great stuff is around, and there's just not enough money. Still I've got this on my radar for the right time, and I wish it all the luck out there. I'm anxious to see it turn out well, and to figure out what its story is. Why are these people attacking? Who are these demons? Who am I? What does Nioh even mean again? Whatever the answer, here I am telling you to go try out Nioh if you've got a PS4, before the awesome beta ends. Its great!

Set photon cannons to fire...

No Man's Sky pictured above

Okay so right now the internet is on fire relating to information of both good and bad sides to No Man's Sky. I'm actually in the progress of making an article confessing my sorry excuse for caving in and going against what I said about the game not being worth $60. I'm also having a really great time with it so far. Even before I was enjoying it, I never said much against the developers. I blamed practically all of the over-hype on fans, and in large part I still do. I actually took some pity against the developer, and kind of felt defensive towards them. I loved their "don't spoil/over-analyse the game" attitude, how they posted a list of what you could NOT do, told fans the game would be fairly chill, and have worked hard on this game despite a lot of trouble like their office getting flooded and wrecking everything. They seemed like hard working guys, with a good sense of humor over on twitter, and I admired their work ethic even if it wasn't perfect. I even hear at least one of them screwed themselves over in housing just to get this game made and keep it funded. I didn't think much of the multiplayer problems, and I'm certainly not angry towards them or sony for the hype it got, but after something that happened recently... I'm fully willing to say these guys have gone full Peter Molyneux, whether intended with malice or just pathologically bad wishful thinking (like Peter). I'm not going to be declaring these guys evil, but they sure are treading around bullshit now, and I'm going to join those who are calling it out. Whatever I say, know that this does not reflect on my views on the complete existing product so much. I'll talk about that in a separate article, but here my experience and thoughts will only come up where its relevant to dissect the myth from the truth.

Quick, google "No Man's Sky DLC" and tell me what comes up. Since this is recent news I expect things may change, but as of the time of writing you can see two sites reporting this recent word from Sean Murray followed directly by a link from the launch day statement with the heading "Free updates, won't have paid DLC". This one moment, this one little moment, is all it took for me to nod my head and follow the path that lead me to this long post of falsehoods that were discussed as a game element. Its no wonder this game is raising both fingers to Spore and Peter Molyneux (two comparisons I'm obviously standing by) by this point. Sean Murray, get your head together and stop this bullshit.

Oh, there's his head!

No really though, this is really the straw that broke here. This should be the point where game advertising becomes illegal, and someone gets a good hard look at from the law. Promising across your game's development that there's no paid DLC various times, promising free updates, even saying it at launch day, and then I'm not even sure if its a week later that it took him to say "oops, we probably will do it." conveniently after pre-orders and launch copies have flown off the shelves. This is also in addition to the salty wounds of the AAA cost treatment and pre-order stripped content. That's not "naive" as he admits, this is either awful con-artist dishonesty, or I-can't-speak-well-in-public type of pathological indecisiveness. It could very easily be either one at this point, but is likely a combination of both. Its not like he didn't expect to do more either, because at one point he hinted at adding in features like building mechanics. That's really damn ambitious, and they had to know it wouldn't be as easy as said and done, but they still promised it around free patch DLC all along the journey... until just today.

I'm pretty sure the way I've seen some interviews unfold, that this guy clearly wasn't ready to speak decisively or answer straight questions, and he never could seem to simply answer "Can I see people in multiplayer". He practically mumbles a "no" after being asked a 2nd time in one interview, but carries the question on somewhere else leading you to not see that answer. Now there's talk of it being a server problem, but uh... what kind of active online server is able to pause, and needs to specifically use search & upload functions to work? The answer is they've either got some weird wizardry, or the online is strictly database material. To be fair I'm totally fine with that, and love (actually kind of NEED) the ability to pause the game, but on this subject there is no way those two players were going to meet unless the server magically scans the two together if they're in the same solar system, and connects them online. I don't see that happening, but maybe that's just my inexperience. Either way, its obvious this game is not online most of the time, something they just cannot get themselves to publicly admit no matter how much its pressed. Sure they told people it wasn't multiplayer-focused, but that's deceiving of the fact that there really is no true multiplayer at all.

Not even sure a planet can look like this anymore

Then of course there's more common grade of shady crap being pulled. The reveal trailer was obviously staged to be perfect, with mighty dinosaurs, and wildlife slurping up water around a relaxing breezy lush planet, and its all really pleasant and nice before the space part hits fast and awesome. Everyone should know that's not the real adventure and how the game would play, but I've got to really question the generation density and call bullshit in the preview. That picture above, with a lush world and bushy trees, I haven't seen hardly anything like it yet. Bare in mind I have only been to around 9 or so planets, but everything outside of my starting one looks like a dried up rocky B grade sci-fi backdrop, and I'm starting to question if you even can get grass and trees together in a lush biome sort of environment. That's a surprisingly pretty big deal for atmosphere, and exploration, and its in so much of the marketing, yet I'm starting to think the ugly blue sickly hue of the cover work is more of what they decided to keep in the end. Oh but don't worry if you think they were only going to sell you on that game, because they put an early trailer from a time where they were admittedly different from the final product, as some of the first things you see in Steam's store page. Funny how I also see automatic "Uploading" in the HUD from a time where maybe the game might have actually been online? Now you have to PAUSE the game, and upload each new scanned thing manually. Lovely marketing No Man's Sky, way to treat your fans like garbage after years of hard work.

I'll leave you with one final quote, perfectly summing up how I feel. This is one of the comments from that reddit link. Then I'm ironically going to go back and play No Man's Sky, because despite all this, its exactly what I expected of it and I'm having a surprisingly good time with that. Still someone needs to get Sean Murray far away from public speaking for this game, and just let it be what it is. Now for that quoted comment...

Just... Holy shit, man. Holy. Shit.

I still love the game. Don't get me wrong. Soon as I'm out of work and my errands are done I'm going to play as much as I can again.

But after reading all of the above? After being convinced for so long that the hype was community created, not because of what Sean said?

Holy fuck, no. Oh god no. It IS. It's Spore.

Spaceman Spiff crashed, but he's still alive. Time to go back to the adventure...

Before-purchase thoughts on No Man's Sky

So lets talk about No Man's Sky and the initial reception. The game has quickly become somewhat of another Spore, just as I figured it kind of would. Infinite worlds of possibility, you can go and touch them all, and then people say... boring? Well not everyone. Actually at least a 1/3rd of the people uttering it are talking out of Lets Plays, because watching is apparently supposed to be the thrill instead of playing. However there's already a moan of disappointment coming out of gamers making the circles, as well as finger-pointing, and mocking the team's vocal director. Something clearly went wrong, but I think its more on the end of hype. Look I don't know everything, and I'm going to proclaim that as loud as possible. (including the title, this happened without having or playing the game.) I have only read bits and pieces of what the game is about, and formed a general quality check on what people have came to conclude. I've got two responses to add to that: I'm optimistically curious enough to stop looking into spoilery content and wish to get this at a cheaper price, and #2 is: I told you so.

Heck you know what, I told you twice in two different ways. People who were disappointed with this game stopped looking at it as a game, and looked at it through some 3rd eye imagination. They heard of the big scope, heard there was multiplayer, and space travel, and thought they'd be on the biggest most endless and incredible space adventure game ever. They failed to listen to the damn gameplay mechanics, a huge problem I dedicated an article to where they can't seem to distinguish a game's depth from its premise, and will selectively choose to run wild with the premise. I even called it specifically out with this line "Then there's the upcoming No Man's Sky where I've already discussed the net has this problem of being super hyped over sheer scope in space." Oh but I also warned you sooner in this article all about No Man's Sky and how it wasn't likely worth its price tag.  In the article, I specifically said this very relevant-to-today line...

"Its an exploration game based on scope, and very basic elements of essentially sight seeing. There's some upgrades going on in the background, but it basically seems to funnel into just making exploration easier like getting a better suit for hostile environments. That scope is gloated about because of just how huge it is though. Its an entire universe boxed up into a game. How can they do that? Well, its computer generated. Five years ago this would have been incredible and unimaginable, but honestly that's just another tick off the box for your generic indie game on steam now. Its actually not but so impressive. The size and scale is still there, but ultimately we've seen these games enough to know the seasoned gamer will easily catch the patterns quickly and want something a bit more... developed."

Yet what are people doing? Already moaning about how repetitive the side-quests are. They're moaning about the progression grind, how its just another survival indie crafter, the tediousness, how its minecraft in space, or how shallow (or even broken) the multiplayer is. That tedious work is all par for the course of what I was talking about. You'll see the seams in the machine-sowed world, you'll notice the gameplay rhythm, and once you do the immersion and wonder gets can fade. Whether that happens over a month into the game, or your first few hours in, depends on how much this kind of game appeals to you.  Oh except the multiplayer, that has little to do with the tediousness, and more to do with how many times they back-paddled the multiplayer-wowing, and switched to more of a "THIS IS NOT A BIG MULTIPLAYER GAME!" like five-to-six times before launch. Again, pay attention to the gameplay related news, and not just buzzwords that fuel your imaginations on what the game will be. That doesn't excuse the issue where two people met up and failed to see each other, but that oddball case aside, it was clear this wasn't some game where you're starting clans and waging wars against people in some action packed way, nor was it made to co-op with your best friend. In the developer's own words for those not paying attention, this was always going to be "a niche game and it’s a very very chill game."

Okay so now that we have all that said and done, lets talk more positive. I'm not trying to tear the game apart, and I'm not against the people who are genuinely happy. Some people just wanted a really awesome big 3D space world to travel in, run into mysterious caves, see where your new equipment will take you, and learn about alien life. No Man's Sky has that in a big way, and I'm not the only person to suspect that its practically the closest we'll get to a spaceman spiff video game, and that is the best selling point you could possibly give to me because it almost makes my imagination run with the game (as in being in awe at each new planet, and curious as to decode its stories and place) rather than against it. Under that light, and the way its been dubbed "addictively boring", I get it and kind of want to dabble in that sort of game. There's a part of me that really just wants to go to each place, just to look up into the night sky and be in complete wonder at the skybox... then go and play with the weird deer dog people of planet Nogg Prime.

However I'm not sure how or when the mood for that type of fun will occur to me, and if its the sort of thing I'd put down $60 for. Its a shame that such a price tag is holding this game back for me, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it drops down to a more typical indie survival crafter price soon.... or at least comes to redbox. Until then, there's Abzu for $20, and that holds a very similar place if its anything like Journey. Meanwhile I'm trying to steer away from spoiling stuff. Even merely skimming videos, I found a guy going to a planet with floating sky-islands, and I just had my mind blown and went "I wish that was my discovery..." and closed it because I didn't want to see anything else without being there. This game is a bit personal to the idea of discovery, and so it'd be awful to discover it all through some internet video someone else is playing.

Look and gaze in wonder, and then you'll find joy

So for what it's worth, don't touch this game unless you really understand what you're getting into. This isn't some epic space shooter, the ultimate everything-in-a-box spaceship game, its rather the journey of a lonely adventurer trying to make his way in the world. Its essentially about you, and your discovery of a nearly empty universe, and that's kind of not what your average gamer is necessarily looking for. The big sellers go to competitive sports games and easy FPS games. Games with flashy show-off motions, and being a breezing power-fantasy of some kind. I myself love that with the right depth applied, which is why Doom and Dishonored are incredible games to me, they're power-fantasies of monster bashing space-marines, or sneaky magical thief-assassins you can just goof around with. No Man's Sky isn't that kind of thing, its a spaceman spiff sort of game about getting lost and mellowed out in a vast universe, in the same way a Minecraft fan can just lose an hour to seeing how deep a cave goes or can be modified. I kind of love that notion when its applied to space, but not for the same way and price I'd pay for Doom & Dishonored. However it does touch a few people in a good way, and on that note I hope they're really having a good time.

Can we fix Doom 4 up a little more?

So good its bad? No, but its so good with some bad.

Okay so Doom is amazing, and I've stated that, and will continue to state that. But lets also note that its not perfect. Today in this article, I'd love to put down some notes out loud on some of the things that bother me, and... I can't be entirely sure all of it is fixable, but lets go over it anyways without trekking over the fact that I still hate the official title is not actually Doom 4 like it should be.

We need to see online get some actual effort to its interface...

So I will defend Doom's online to the death on its style of gameplay. Its arena-lite awesomeness, and while some whiners are out there saying its not "fast enough", and the weapon limitations suck, my response is... what the hell else are you playing better right now? Unless you go back to playing bots on UT04, which I'm not suggesting is a bad idea at all, you've got very little to deal with for better competitions. Even Quake Live ran over the purist crowd with a stupid loadout update. I would certainly enjoy seeing the loadouts done away with, but it doesn't ruin the online completely or anything. Doom still is ridiculously fast paced, vicious and energetic in combat, and its still got some crazy and cool weapons as well as pickups. I have to kind of scratch my head and wonder how you guys let TF2 and Overwatch get away with their set-ups if you strictly believe every crazy arena FPS needs the full UT/Quake format, and before you bring up their "classes/characters", that's kind of my point... how are you okay with that for happening in the first place if you can't even give Doom a real chance?

However here's the thing I will level at Doom's online, and it admittedly is a bit about what the game lacks in respects to capturing UT04 or even TF2 fame. But its not because of what its close to being and ruins it with modern conventions, its the fact that even any modern game sucks in this regard if they lack it. We're talking server lists, bots, and (perhaps this was patched, but in case its not:) private matches. When Doom's MP launched, it was not only disappointing to the purists that complained about the structure, but also the fact that you couldn't do anything with it other than jump into a random matchmaking session. To add salt to the injury, and I don't care what you say about this "party" plan, there's premium mappacks to ruin the community. Fuck that. But its too late because you had to rush those out on season passes and now that's locked in stone, but I will still criticize the forced matchmaking and the lack of bots. On top of that, here's the weird thing: Bots would not be a grueling new exercise, they were programmed into the game to begin with! For some brain-dead decision, they did not make it to the point of release and neither did private matches. Even if it was done primitively, like you just loaded up an empty match and shot right into completely untweakable bots exclusive to a deathmatch mode, I'd still at least appreciate them being kept.

It isn't all pretty

I'd be thankful to hear an update is probably coming to fix this, but I'm not exactly an idiot. They went out of their way to not answer about this, to strip it out, and to say that maybe it'll be done on all platforms eventually. Here we well over a month later without something that was in before the game was even officially released. I'm not thanking them for that, and nobody else should either. Private matches especially are a standard thing that should always be done if you deem yourself a complete multiplayer experience, and we didn't get that. I'm not thanking them for being sub-par about their game, and only bringing it up to balance later. I'm also not sure server lists are even talked about, and I'm not expecting that to be fixed, but it still should and would greatly improve the atmosphere, lasting value, and just fun of the online. These things should all be standard to every multiplayer game, but the sad fact is that devs think they can skimp on it or even gut it and everything will still be alright. Well if we were to take that bethesda claim that the multiplayer is a part of the whole game enough so to keep critics held back away from it, I say under that condition they released an unfinished game in a big way and that needs to be remedied. The reality is that truly the camaign by itself is a gift from the heavens and more than worth your money, but eh I'll hold game to their own standards as an extra reason to say that their multiplayer needs some more effort put into it.

Optimizing the interface, and just cutting the down-time

Optimization is usually a word we talk about involving the game's performance in motion and play. Doom has this down as perfect and masterfully as anything else it does. Its everything around it I call into question. I really don't understand how this works or why they decided to work it in this way, but just take a few minutes of your time to sort through the menus and you begin seeing its a bit of a clutter to deal with. I could probably linger on this for the snapmap alone, but its really a part of the whole package. If you wanted to load up the multiplayer just to check anything new, it'll take you about two minutes to get that done, and then maybe another minute or two to get back into a normal mode. Meanwhile something like Timesplitters 2 from over a decade old ago was equally as content packed (if not more), and only made you load up things when they were truly loading something you were going to play, or worth seeing. If our reliance on servers have bogged us down this much, I really just want a damn option to turn that stuff on or off to begin with (similar to how Phantom Pain works much better when you turn online off). This stuff is a good example of "I don't know if it can be fixed" because this really is something up to the coders, data experts, and whatnot. However I do feel like the recent update has brought out the biggest sting regarding the accessibility problems this presence.

It all started with just downloading the update. Why is it 12gbs (A chunk of the full Doom game, and the size of about three-to-five good indies) for some asset flips over towards snapmap, and two new multiplayer modes? I know I'm trivializing that, because snapmap bits get their own descriptions, special coding, but its not like they're making me a new level or expansion pack with that stuff. I question this almost as harshly as the Witcher & COD updates that were so bad, but not quite as harshly. Still this is pre-DLC stuff here, and so we haven't even touched on all the future snapmap updates, the promised multiplayer fixes, and then each of the 3 awful DLC packs we don't even want but will be forced to install anyway. Stop it devs, just stop it and optimize your damn game sizes! I love Doom, but its not the only game I play, and I don't want it to eat up 100gbs of my 430-ishGB PS4.

The next issue came with loading times, and trying to use those lovely new updates, because the new updates were pretty awesome in what they added. I loved the hell modules, the weapons lists, the- oh, it crashed. Well damn I didn't save that because I was only 12 minutes in and finding some basic foundation! *15 minutes, and four loading screens later* Okay, I'm back in and ready to link this thing, with that thing, and now I'm testing this other thing, an- oh, damnit, not again!? Not only does it crash a lot in (mostly bluepoint mode actually), but in order to load it up again you go through those painful menus I mentioned earlier. Every crash means you're dealing with a start, a mode switch, "connecting to the servers" wait, scrolling through the crazy UI, and getting the map-maker itself to load. Oh, and if you lose while playing someone's map, its just a "fuck you" and you get to load back into a rating screen where you rate the level you never beat. Then you have to manually start it again from the hosting screen (which is stupid for the many solo maps that have no such actual hosting). No more of that fast-paced mastery, or any trial or error in learning some insane random player creation like you'd expect from a game like this; You're punished by essentially being kicked out of a server. That's just absurd, and I feel like at least that much can be fixed. I'm not asking for mandatory checkpoints to hold me through, but at least give us a traditional "Game Over: Try again?" kind of screen to just instantly reload the map.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I'll also point out the ridiculous nature of replaying levels where minor details are fixed to work in alien ways. The way runes can't be played anymore on the spot, or how checkpoints just don't work, yet for some reason the secret meter goes off on discovered stuff, it all makes no sense. I think someone put together the save system in a really clumsy and tangled way, and some poor guy tried to salvage things and save us from an Ubisoft-style "haha, can only play it once" style of idiocy.

Nitpicking snapmap even more...

Uh, no this command didn't work right at all for me

...and trying to wrap this up quickly now, but efficiently, lets talk of the issues I've had within snapmap. No longer about the menus, formatting, etc, but rather how it actually works... and sometimes that's broken. In addition to the game launching where demon entry types conflicted with each other without warning, and running off of the multiplayer's tweaks, there's other issues. Because of that demon issue, where pre-placed demon assets wont work alongside spawns without their own special coding, you need to mostly depend on spawner codes. Spawner codes, which randomly break. I've had waves come in way too late, enemies that spawn only once you've already passed the room, and oh I've even had enemies that loop their own respawn upon an "on-kill" command going to someone else for... reasons? On top of that, it also doesn't help that spawners just don't have enough options. Why is it that 80% of the preset groups consist of a baron, as if that's the one guy they want players to fight all the time rather than as a sparingly used super baddie like he really is? Why is it that the boss mode bit is one of the only spawners that lacks health buff settings, so you can't actually make him a real boss (meaning you should use the baron for that spare occasion, and not the dozen pre-sets with him in it)? Also is wave customization too much to ask, so that I can omit something like the 6 lost souls that keep popping up and cheaply blowing my health down to zero? Is it also possible to polish the filters, because I'm not a huge fan of how you can see room A's filter in room B without B actually having it, and then walking through it just snaps back into shape. Yeah this mode still has some issues and like I mentioned in my review, its awful that this replaced modding.

The mode has issues preventing full freedom and control, and it doesn't even know what its going to do itself sometimes. The mode is still incredible, and sucks hours of my time into making one map right, but its still got issues that usually force me into a work-around on every kind of map. I'd love to end every map with a boss fight, but I can't with the miniboss system since that doesn't allow me to create a real boss. I'd have to instead make a super-buff spawn of a bigger enemy and pretend he's the boss, since I don't have the official event in place. I have to finely test each wave event multiple times to make sure I don't get a bad roll of the dice and die to a cheap spawn rate, since I can't control who spawns and if I have the right equipment. Oh, and a little issue I found only recently that perfectly sums up how bullshit the errors in this can be: I wanted to make a checkpoint system. I found a way to move up the spawn point by setting a code to enable a new player start, and it worked. If I died at a certain point, it brought me to my 2nd spawn every time. Did this with the final room, and it... failed. It would not work at all, and kept sending me to the 2nd spawn. So I set a disable trigger to both other spawns to see if there were too many activated, and it... just sent me back to the very beginning ignoring both my new spawn, and ignoring my disable command. Each time I tested this I looked closely at the code to make sure it was set in place right, and it was. Every logic command just right, done exactly how I set the 2nd spawn. I had to give up and invent a teleporter activation that kicked in underneath of the 2nd spawn, so I'd have a sloppy delayed jump to the area I was supposed to. Meanwhile real checkpoints beyond one are possible as is evident by another map I played, but as I tore through the game's options, I found nothing like it in my tools. So this is not only telling me that codes just don't work on their own terms, but also there's clearly some stuff here not intuitive enough to figure out something as simple as "Checkpoint" or "enables player respawn here".

Doom has some mess beyond the gore splattering on the walls

Doom is an amazing game, but it isn't perfect. In all of its amazing glory, and in all the smiles it brings, it has inspired me to play it enough to see some ugly stuff underneath its pristine surface. Some of this stuff really, really, really can bug a person like me that loves and craves more out of this game. Its everything from the little bugs, and wishful thinking, to the fact that I can't design a damn reasonable boss fight with the boss tool, or enjoy any custom MP maps since there's no bots to do it and nobody else is actually going to wait around in their crappy matchmaking system. It'd be amazing if Doom actually fixed all of these problems. Its still one of the best shooters I've ever played, but it sure would be great to see it do even better and fix the weak cracks in the wall. If nothing else though, I really want that size to go down rather than up with some optimization. I cannot repeat it enough that there's a difference from me actually being able to play the game or not if the game winds up at some ridiculous 100GB size. I love Doom, but not enough to throw away 4-6 other games for it.

Not enough Doom

Okay so I was originally going to be here, writing an article on things that kind of bring the new Doom game down a bit. I love it as a game, but like anything else, it isn't perfect. Doom is especially a weird case of a game that is so incredible, but also flawed on a couple objective notes like how tonight I had a crash twice when just starting out on a new snapmap plan. ...then in the middle of that, I remembered just how painfully long the loading was. This was all also on the back of... you know what, I'll save it. In the middle of these complaints on a fantastic game, I not only felt a little bad about writing them out, but I also looked around and kept finding excuses to gush all about how awesome this game was and just how much good effort went into this. (Did you know they make fun of the "piss filter" controversy in the Snapmap? "Yellow filter causes drama" is in the description for the filter options, and that's only the beginning of in-jokes there) Then I remembered another article idea I wanted to discuss, and perhaps a few similar topics.

So y'know what, I'm just going to make this a coming soon tease for some upcoming articles I want to talk about. If time allows it, August shall be a month full of Doom and maybe a couple other great games to reflect back on that came out of this year. I've also got something big on R&C slowly coming around, I've had an urge to reflect on the state of indies as well including awesome titles like Armello, Stories, and Gungeon all related to stuff (or just released) of this recent year. But most importantly, lets just celebrate the fact that Doom is a thing that exists and I have some stuff to talk about with it. At least 3 things, which shall be...

1. Why I think the new Doom is better - Article all around the idea that Doom in fact beats the old classic that nobody really wants to admit can be trumped. It'll pay its respects to the classic of course, and even give you perspective on why I think that way, but its also all about how Doom 4 is probably better.
2. Fixing Doom - I'm still going over the issues I have with this game, and it does have issues. I love it, its so close to perfect, but the more you're around something you like the more likely you are to have an accident that'll still suck. I think a few might be avoidable, or at least worth venting over.
3. Miscellaneous - Okay, yeah that's not a title,but I don't even know for certain myself what I'll do for sure. I don't want to plan it all out, let the game and my thoughts speak for themselves. I'm considering things like: What other shooters can learn from Doom. Or... Snapmap ideas, or maybe just a top X list centered around it. I know of some ideas, just not of what I'll truly turn into the last big article (assuming I stop at 3).

No running or hiding from me!

There's really a lot of ideas here. I could even do one on blowing certain features or nitpicks out of proportion, like comparing Summoner with Lost Souls and how to do annoying enemies right vs... well, annoyingly. Doom is an amazing and true AAA packed experience full of a lot of laughs, andrenalin, and just good gaming fun, and there's a lot to talk about with it. Its one of my favorite shooters in a long while, if not possibly ever, and I do want to give it more coverage and positive discussions centered around how great of a game it is. Of course I'm also considering other articles where relevant. I'm really thinking about discussing the No Man's Sky issue of not releasing normal press reviews (which funnily enough Doom did, and was silly for doing). Still for the most part, expect a fresh batch of Doom articles and a R&C one sometime eventually.

Summon Doom's awesomeness, one article at a time...

Retreading the trail: Review scores

UPDATE: Whatever happened with those review scores, isn't a lasting trend. I'm late to return here, but as I guessed, it wasn't a permanent change in feature. Sad, but I still stand by this article as a reminder that reviews don't really need scores. End Update

So one of my more frequently visited sites, PS lifestyle, had an interesting unofficial change today. Perhaps its just a glitch, and before I even submit it things are changed back to normal, or maybe there will even be an official word and explanation for this put out. Its the Headlander, and the import review of Dragon's Quest Heroes 2 both do not end with a number score. Although the DQH2 score can also be explained away with the bottom as "Only PS4 version evaluated in this review. Therefore, cross-platform multiplayer could not be tested and for this reason, there is no numerical score assigned". So don't read too much into that, but it still strikes me as odd and Headlander has no explanation. In fact the entire score card if off. At first I was a little disappointed. Reviews scores are fun to read, I'll give it that, but that's all it is... its just fun. Its fun to hypothetically assess where a game is on this number of 1 to 10 scale. However as a serious tool and use, its as useful as playing charades with a buddy to determine if you are burning or keeping your $60. That's why I ditched them myself, and I still stand by my system and what I crudely said here. Notably the part where I said...

They give it a 7. What's that supposed to mean? How is that supposed to really tell you the whole experience they had, and their recommendation? A 7 out of nearly infinite numbers or other ratings they could have choosen? Well it makes no difference... whether its 70%, 7%, 7 out of 10, 3 stars out of 5, or C-, you can't really get anything out of that. [...] An entire $60 seems to be in part balanced not by entertainment, length, or cleverness, but instead by a scale ranging from 1 to 100 or 1 to 5. You can't summarize a whole essay, speech, or professional judgement on anything with just a number. Neither can you summarize all the content, fun, or problems of a game with it, and I might even say developers should feel insulted that their work and effort is put on such abstract scales.

So I certainly agree with it being removed. Its not just my input though. I think PS Lifestyle's scores have been trouble for them before as well, and a few other users have also commented on it. Lets take a look at their infamous 10/10 ACU score from some time back, and I'll quote a conversation starting with person "A" and including me at one point (ironically defending the score)...

A) How can you list 2 negatives yet give it a flawless score?

B)  10/10 does not indicate a flawless game, otherwise no title would qualify. It simply means "as impressive as a game can be."

A)  Huh? They both mean the same thing and no title should qualify for top marks either imo. That's why I don't like the numbered review scores, it's flawed, colours would be better

B)  Well, my (and this site's) interpretation is that no game is perfect. A game can be incredibly impressive with a couple minor issues and still earn a 10/10.

Me)  They're pretty minor negatives for a game that's supposedly a blast to play.

C) Minor negatives that in other reviews could end up meaning the game gets a 7. See this is the problem with game reviews. There's no consistency at all. It's because the reviewers still believe they should be giving strictly their own opinion, instead of trying to be objective and realizing that reviews are used as a reference.

It wound up being a guy that responded to me who ran into his own ramblings about a broken number system, but that wasn't even the first time it was bashed in this chatter ("colours would be better"). But I'll tell you what, you can go and look at this whole mess yourself to find the full conversation. This was a review that left them with nearly around 400+ inflammatory comments angered by mostly the score. The review was badly written and got some flak itself (and to the writer's defense, he saw legit feedback from the two or so people that gave it), however the score was a big part of its problems. People were inraged by the 10/10 a broken and poorly functional game like Unity got. The funny thing to is I'd totally be on the guy's side if it weren't for the fact that his review was still poorly written and I couldn't get behind him on it at all. But I'd been in those cases where a game was "flawed, broken, trash" and I still loved it. I love games like Naughty Bear, Two Worlds 2, and then Alpha Prime remains one of my favorite casual FPSs to just jump in and enjoy its sheer B-grade rip-off pulp fiction style. On the other side of the spectrum, I know critics who literally can't play fully functional and fun 30fps games if their lives depended on it.

So, 3/10?

So how do you decide to review games like this? How in a world where people will flock to and buy millions of a watered-down Battlefront cash-in, with critics who are blind to certain broken games, and snobs who can't be bothered to touch a game if its not hitting certain standards developers may not even consider for the normal market? One word: COMMUNICATION! Communicate the way you like your games, tell people how good the game is, where it falls (and if it does or doesn't bother you), tell them how the mechanics work and if they're any good, and tell us if the game is good or bad in regards with what you're looking for. A seven, a ten, or a big fat hen wont tell you any of those things. They distract from all those efforts to say such things. They have caused people to get cozy and lazy and rely on a number to dictate their emotions.  However emotions, like number scores, are abstract things, and so nobody really knows what they're arguing over. Maybe a 10 is a forbidden perfect to some people, but to others it just means its as good as you could hope for and not about perfection. It differs, and no matter how much you stand by a web's code on what a number means, nobody is actually looking at that... because you made them a shortcut abstract code they want to read, interpret themselves, and argue over, rather than actually read what the damn game is about. Take that away, and they're forced to edge into reading bits about the game and maybe even *gasp* get a curiosity about what it offers and does as a game.

Sadly there's already one (and one upvoted at that, so basically 2) people arguing for this to be reverted. I'm not here to single out any individual, and its definitely not the result of a mob mentality to complain about, but I'm going to address their side of the argument head-on anyways. I already discussed this with them as well, so I did do my part to hope this doesn't snowball in that direction. Basically, they're wondering how will they determine if a game is worth reading about and save their time if they don't have a number score to determine if its any good first? Basically, they would maybe consider reading about a game only if it got like an 8/10 or something (not specified, but going off the modern assumptions of a system, they wont be giving much of the score a chance). Otherwise they'd save time and skip the game completely, not reading a bit about it.

I could respond to this mentality in so many ways. I get it, and understand the desire to save time in this busy world. Right now I want to edit together a video, start a new Doom map, have 2 novels I'm trying to finish, am writing my own work, have a couple youtube videos I want to watch, and I probably wont get it all done today and I'm still distracting hours of my time with this article. I definitely didn't wast even more of my morning reading the full review of either of the games that kickstarted this discussion. Still I'm not in such a hurry that I'd throw away any knowledge of the game. Be it a 3/10 or a 9/10, they're both worth knowing something about if they caught your attention enough to go to the review page. So freakin' read something! That's what the summary is there for, or the ability to skim an article. I've done that countless times and walked out still empowered to know what that game did for the reviewer, and if its worth my time to consider. You don't need numbers for a shortcut, and if you do need things cut that short, you certainly don't have the time to be browsing video game websites for reviews. Either learn about the games, or don't bother to make it a big part of your time. You almost deserve to miss out on hidden gems if you only accept 8 out of 10s and such.

The only thing I'll add in conclusion is... I actually would like to see the summary points go back. PS lifestyle actually inspired my own review board, and I believe I found them doing it before sites like IGN followed suit. Its not a bad thing to copy either, the summary pros/cons are an awesome little bit. They bring up the most prominent faults and awesome bits of a game, and highlight them as "This is what you've got to accept walking into if you're planning on buying this product". It was perfect not only for those in a hurry, but just as a powerful end for those doing a full reading. So I borrowed that element in creating my own new format, and also applied general powerful feeling words, like if walking away from a gaming session left you to find the game was still "awesome", or if it was "okay", or something "heretical" to your time and to the nature of gaming. Those formed the basis of my score cards instead of abstract gibberish numerical nonsense. I'd certainly welcome PS Lifestyle to put those back. But you know what, even if that's the end of it alongside their entire scorecard, I'd be fine with that. Throw out the number scores, take a stand like Eurogamer, and continue to push the net that much closer to actually learn about the games that your writers are spending time on, and devs spent up to and beyond a year of their life working on. No 6, 7, 8, 9, or whatever can cover that kind thing.

Neither can a number capture the surprises, and joy that a good game brings